The Triple Assessment..

It was from here on in my problems with the public system began. There was just no communication. I had gotten the letter to call me back for my second mammogram but had no clue whether it was the left or right breast or why I was being brought back. I asked the nurse at my 2nd appointment and all she told me was she needed to have more images of the left breast. I still had no clue if the right one which I had been referred with was ok. Nobody told me anything. This time I was told to take a seat back in the cubicle after the mammogram so that a doctor could view the images and see if I needed any further tests. While I sat there I even said a little prayer that I wouldn’t have to, I heard the nurse asking the dr in the hall “is it ok to send Lorraine home and all I heard was no because bla bla bla. I nearly tore my head off my neck trying to hear what she was saying. The nurse then told me I would need an Ultrasound which was in the room next door.

The Ultrasound lady was very detached and not very friendly, she had a look at the lump in silence for a few minutes and then declared very abruptly  “you have a small lump and need to be biopsied” end of, not another word. It all got very busy then as the nurse got everything ready and still the room stayed very quiet, I was kinda dreading this as my last experience hadn’t been great but this time she gave me a small local anasthetic in the boob(doesn’t hurt at all) and then said that the biopsy thingy would make a small noise and not to get a fright and sure what did I do, I nearly jumped out of my skin when she did it first. It was one of those completely over the top reactions to a tiny noise and she looked at me like I was 5 and asked had she hurt me or did I get a fright, she took about 4 or 5 samples from the lump guided by the ultrasound in complete silence again, (again this doesn’t hurt at all)I don’t think I’ve ever stayed so quiet for so long but there was no chatting with this lady, in saying that I’d say she’s very good because she concentrates but a little bedside manner is always nice in these tense situations. She put a plaster over the biopsy site and said I’d have a bit of bruising and that was it, not 1 ounce of information as to what she thought it was, what it might be. When you get a Mammogram, Ultrasound and Biopsy done it’s known as Triple Assessment.

I presumed I would speak to a dr after so I didn’t push her on it but nope, the nurse escorted me out and told me it would  be 2 weeks for results and she would get me an appt. This was the week before my holiday and I was going for a month so I presumed they would give it to me over the phone but she said it was policy not to, at this point I was starting to panic a little, there had to be something up and nobody was telling me. I registered my VHI etc with the girl in the office and she could see I was worried and said surely if there’s anything wrong they would contact you, and told me to go up to the Breast Clinic and see if there was anybody that could help me. There was 3 ladies on the desk and all said the same they won’t give it over the phone, that was it I started bawling, one of those can’t talk through the tears ones and talking about my month’s holiday being ruined and what if there was anything serious wrong, they felt sorry for me then and gave me my Dr’s receptionists number and said to give her a ring and she might be able to help me. I rang her straight away when I got home and again she said it wasn’t policy but given the circumstances she’d see what she could do and to give her a ring in 2 weeks time from Italy.

There was nothing to do but just try and put it to the back of my mind, pack our bags and head off to Italy, we had a fantastic holiday but it was always there in the back of my mind. It’s amazing how your mind works when you’re worrying about something, I was on the beach one day on my own while the girls were having a snooze in the hotel room and there was a lot of older people in our hotel and one very old man sitting near me could hardly get up from the sunbed, normally I’d be feeling really sorry for him but I was so jealous of him, there I was wondering would I live to that age and have problems getting out of my sun chair, would I be back sunbathing there next year, did I have cancer, was I going to die. Yep a very relaxing afternoon I had that day:)

The day arrived that I could ring and I ended up missing a call from my dr, I rang her back straight away expecting a “oh everything is ok” but she said she couldn’t tell me much over the phone but that I would need further tests and to come see the Dr the day after I came home. All I remember thinking was “OH FXXK”, I asked her was it anything serious and she just said my DR said to enjoy the rest of my holiday and he’d talk to me when I came back. There wasn’t a hope of enjoying the rest of my holiday after this, I rang my GP straight away and she calmed me down a bit, I went back in tears to the appartment to the MIL and himself, everybody was worried but again if there was something serious wrong they would have brought me home wouldn’t they. At this stage I knew nothing about DCIS or Pre-Cancer so I just assumed they weren’t getting the right results and just had to do a biopsy again. I had 2 weeks left of my holiday so I enjoyed as best I could but I was so worried all the time, it ruined it for me. I put on a brave face for everybody else and nobody noticed but I just couldn’t wait to come home and just get it over with…

The Mammogram…

So the dreaded day arrived. To be honest I hadn’t a clue what to expect, for some reason I did’t even google “mammogram”, this is very unlike me, I think I was in a bit of denial and didn’t really want to know.I was dreading going out to the Regional and assumed I’d be there for half the day. I checked in at the X-Ray dept and was sent to the waiting room around the corner, I expected lots of others waiting but I was the only one. I got called straight away and was brought into a little cubicle and given a gown, told to strip to the waist and given  a “shopping basket” for my clothes, I would have much preferred to be shopping. There’s 2 cubicles outside the Mammogram room in Limerick Regional Hospital and there was a lady in the opposite one, it’s one of those awkward moments where you are both sitting there in your blue gowns opposite each other and nobody knows where to look but you are too far away form each other to chat even though you don’t feel like it anyway.

When I got called in you just open your gown and the nurse positions your breast between 2 plates and squishes the hell out of them. You will have never experienced squishiness like this BUT it does not hurt. You hold onto a bar at the side and she goes behind her little station and takes the images, she does the same on both sides. She had to do my left one again because she obviously saw my lump but told me not to worry she just had to get a clearer image. She had to get quite close to the chest wall so I was having images of me stuck inside the machine hanging on by my boobs and only my legs sticking out in the air, maybe it wasn’t this dramatic but it felt pretty similar:) There was no chit chat or anything as they do so many of these everyday and she gave me no feedback so I kinda felt a little panic when I left as a little reassurance always goes a long way. She told me the results would go to my doctor in a couple of weeks and off I went on my merry way. I think it took less than half an hour in total from when I arrived there so I was dead impressed how efficient everything was.

So a couple of weeks passed and no sign  of any phone call from my GP so I took this as a good sign, if there was anything serious they would have rang straight away wouldn’t they? I had to bring my smallest to the dr during this time and I asked the GP about it and she said sometimes it can take up to 3 weeks for results but it was nothing to worry about. In the meantime I was getting ready for my holiday in Italy, we were going for a month, our first time ever going for this long but we had had a tough couple of years and had launched a second business so we deserved a nice break and that’s when the brown envelope came. I dreaded these brown envelopes in the end. My heart sank when I read the letter, I actually felt sick. I was being called back for another mammogram, there was big bold writing saying it didn’t necessarily mean there was anything wrong but I knew there was something. My appointment was for the 26th of July, a month to the date of my last one and a week before my holidays but surely if there was anything wrong they would have brought me back sooner than that, wouldn’t they?